Feds appeal Ontario marijuana ruling

OTTAWA — Just a week after an Ontario Superior Court judge found marijuana cultivation and usage laws unconstitutional, the federal government has moved to appeal the decision.

The appeal, filed this week by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, said Justice Donald Taliano "erred in law" by stating access regulations for medical marijuana were not valid under the Constitution and held no force.

Taliano's decision was issued on April 11 and allowed government 90 days to respond with a successful delay or re-regulation of marijuana. Had that period passed with no government response, the drug would be legal to possess and produce in Ontario, where the decision is binding.

The ruling stemmed from the constitutional challenge of Matthew Mernagh, a man who relies on medical marijuana to ease pain brought on by fibromyalgia, scoliosis, seizures and depression.

The Ontario Court of Appeal had recognized previously that to deprive someone with a serious illness of medical marijuana if it relieves their pain is a violation of the Charter of Rights. As a result, the federal government created the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations to let people legally obtain, possess and grow marijuana if they have a licence supported by a medical doctor.

Health Canada's medical marijuana program regulates and approves the growers from whom patients can buy and how much they're legally allowed to use for their treatment.

As of April 1, more than 9,800 Canadians are legally permitted to possess medicinal marijuana, according to Health Canada. Nearly 5,600 people hold a personal grower's licence and 1,837 people hold a licence to grow for one other person.

However, Taliano wrote in his decision on Monday that Mernagh — a well-known marijuana advocate who has been charged for possession and production of marijuana numerous times — has been unable to get a doctor to sign off on a medical marijuana licence.

Other patients run into the same problem, the judge noted in his ruling, and that forces some seriously ill people to obtain marijuana illegally.

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